Learning to Say What’s on My Mind

When I left the military in 2012, I worked as a CrossFit Coach for about 6 years.  I have many fond memories and strong relationships that grew out of that time.  I also have bad memories of struggling financially and not feeling personally fulfilled.  Having a second job as a part time security guard (as I do now) would have been ideal back then.  It would have helped tremendously with my financial struggles.  But after leaving the Army I just didn’t want to work for anyone doing anything that I wasn’t already interested in.  Even though I wasn’t making much money, I enjoyed the autonomy that I had being a fitness coach.  

The personal fulfilment issue was something else.  Recently, some conversations with a career coach have helped me figure out why I wasn’t fulfilled as a fitness coach and why I burned out as a motivational speaker.  There are surface reasons for both but there is an undercurrent that I’ve been able to identify with both:  I was filtering my thoughts and emotions far too often.

Let me use a story from my time working at a gym to explain.  I had a client come in one day because he wanted to start doing Crossfit.  In my intake interviews with potential clients I always tried to get the best picture I could of their athletic, exercise, and injury histories.  This guy was an Army Veteran.  He was about to leave the Army after having served as an Infantry Officer for a couple of years.  He was heading to medical school.  Being an Infantry Officer told me that he was definitely accustomed to working out hard but he had also injured his back in an IED blast in Iraq.  He really wanted to do CrossFit.  I wanted him to do it as well but I also wanted him to give appropriate care to his back so that he could enjoy the sport and stay relatively injury free.  My initial focus was taking him through mobility work.  These things involved movements he could do anywhere that would aid in the process of healing his back and keeping his body resilient.  

We made it through our first session but in the second session, as I was about to start putting him through another mobility routine, he stopped me and said, “Travis, I really just want to focus on CrossFit.  Let’s just do that.”  He was insistent that the mobility work was not what he wanted to go over.  I believed that he needed to prioritize the mobility work to make sure that CrossFit workouts didn’t further exacerbate his back injury.  But he wanted what he wanted, so in our remaining two sessions, I went over technique for all the basic Crossfit movements at the time.  But the exchange has always bothered me.  

At that time, I was not confident enough in myself to call out flaws in a client’s thinking when I heard it.  I didn’t want to upset clients.  I had explained to him the importance of mobility work for any athlete and much more someone who has been through a significant back injury.  But he wasn’t interested.  It was at that point that I should have told him that I was the wrong coach for him.  But I didn’t.  I gave him what he asked for even though I wasn’t totally comfortable with it.  

I’ve never stopped thinking about that exchange.  This interaction was an absolute microcosm of my 6 years being a fitness coach and my time motivational speaking.  This situation is specific to working out but if we zoom out there were much bigger behavioral problems that I should have addressed with clients at the gym and clients I had when I was a speaker:

• Showing up late for class or private coaching.
• Talking while I’m trying to teach.
• Not keeping a journal of workouts in the case of the gym.
• Not doing the homework I gave to people when I would take on life coaching clients as a speaker.
• Generally rude and immature behavior in any context.

I know I’ve said this a million times but I’m certain that my pattern of letting people get away with these things comes from my childhood.  Again, my mother was an extremely domineering figure in my life and one thing she didn’t let me do is push back on her ideas.  Any complaint or frustration I tried to express with her was aggressively shut down with a verbal onslaught and sometimes a belt.  I developed a pattern of simply closing my mouth and putting up with whatever people were doing around me or to me.  I carried this pattern to school and, clearly, I carried it into adulthood.  As a kid I had to put up with my home life and school life.  I couldn’t escape.  As an adult I’ve found that I reach a tipping point and I separate myself from the situation.  Sometimes that separation is marked by a sudden blow up.  All of the frustration that I have been holding with a particular person, group, or situation comes out in one moment and it blindsides people.  I’ve destroyed several relationships in this way.  

I’ve known for the last 5 years that I have this problem but I’ve struggled to identify it when it’s happening in real time.  Now I see it more clearly in my daily interactions and I can feel it in the moment when I’m doing it.  I’m practicing saying exactly what’s on my mind even when people don’t want to hear it.  This might be a result of counseling.  It may just be age and maturity.  It could also be the fact that I haven’t stopped wanting to work in fitness and wanting to make a business out of my ideas on self improvement.  The interest and passion have never disappeared.  I’ve never stopped thinking about what I could do differently to make things work with either endeavor.  Yes, lack of income was a problem.  Yes, giving too much concern to criticism was a problem.  Yes, not having an overarching philosophy was a problem.  But I really feel like all of these surface problems stem from not saying what’s on my mind.  

I really thought I would never do personal training again.  I also had abandoned the idea of ever actively looking for speaking opportunities again.  I’m working on getting both started right now.  

It’s incredibly frustrating to realize at times that I am still working to shake the negative experiences I went through as a child.  What is more challenging is to know that I am asking myself to exhibit something that I never saw or received growing up:  Kind but honest criticism.  But, if I can get this right, life is going to be better in so many ways.  In particular, I’ll get the privilege to do work I truly believe in.  This is most certainly worth the effort.  

The work never stops.  Adapt and Overcome.

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